A Capital Crime

by Laura Wilson

  Backhouse paused, looking very much the worthy and concerned citizen. Stratton indicated, with a curt nod in Ballard’s direction, that it was all being taken down, and said, ‘And then …?’

  ‘Some time after that, Muriel came to me, very upset, and told me Davies had been knocking her about and she couldn’t bear it any more. She said she was going to make an end of it.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘I took it to mean,’ Backhouse’s voice was hushed – this time, thought Stratton, for effect – ‘that she was planning to commit suicide.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, it must have been shortly after that when I went upstairs and found her lying in front of the fireplace in their kitchen. She’d taken the quilt from the bed and was making an attempt to gas herself. When I saw her I knew I had to move quickly.’ This was said as one modestly recounting a heroic act. ‘I turned off the tap – she’d attached a piece of tubing to it, and the end was near her head – and opened the window.’

  ‘Have you any idea how long the gas had been on?’

  Backhouse shook his head. ‘She’d done it before I got there. There was a lot of gas in the room – that’s why I opened the window. She came round after that and I made her a cup of tea. She asked me not to tell anyone about it, and I said I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Was there anyone else in the house at the time?’

  ‘Well, my wife was downstairs.’

  ‘What about Davies?’

  ‘He wasn’t there.’

  ‘The workmen?’

  ‘I’m not sure … They weren’t there when I went downstairs. My head was thumping from the effect of the gas, you see, and I wanted some air. I didn’t say anything to my wife about it. I was very worried about Muriel – it was playing on my mind – so I went upstairs again the following day to see if she was all right. As far as I remember, it was about lunchtime when I went up, after my wife had gone out … Muriel told me she still intended to do away with herself. She begged me to help her – in fact, she said she would do anything if I would help her.’ Backhouse gave a meaningful nod.

  ‘What did you understand by that?’ asked Stratton,

  ‘That she … she would let me be … intimate with her. She brought the quilt in and put it down in front of the fireplace and lay on it. As far as I can remember, she was fully dressed …’ Backhouse tailed off, as if in a reverie, and when he spoke again his voice was almost inaudible. ‘I got down on my knees then, but I wasn’t capable of having intercourse because of the fibrositis in my back … I couldn’t do it. She begged me …’

  ‘Begged you for what?’

  ‘To help her … As far as I can make out, I must have turned on the gas tap and put the tubing close to her face. When she became unconscious I turned it off again. I was going to try to have intercourse with her then—’

  ‘You weren’t affected by the gas?’

  Backhouse blinked, looking confused, then shook his head. ‘The gas wasn’t on for very long, not much over a minute.’

  ‘Did you hit her? Punch her?’

  Backhouse shook his head. ‘No … I’m sure there was nothing like that.’

  ‘But she became unconscious in that time?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right … I couldn’t have intercourse because I couldn’t bend over her. I think that’s when I strangled her.’

  ‘What with?’

  ‘A stocking, I think. I found one in the room. I’m not certain about it, but I think that’s what I did. I left her where she was and went downstairs. I think my wife was there then, but I didn’t say anything about it.’

  More holes than a Dutch cheese, thought Stratton. Still, it was a confession, and probably as good as they were going to get. ‘What happened after that?’

  ‘Davies came home about six o’clock in the evening, I think. Anyway, I remember it was dark when I heard him come in. I went into the passage and told him what had happened – that his wife had committed suicide by gassing herself. He was very upset’ – You don’t say, thought Stratton – ‘so I went upstairs with him. He picked her up and carried her into the bedroom and put her down on the bed.’

  ‘Was the stocking still round her neck when he did that?’

  ‘No … I think I took it off before I went downstairs. I must have thrown it into the fireplace – I think there was a fire in the grate.’

  ‘A fire?’ asked Stratton, incredulous. ‘And you’d turned on the gas?’

  ‘I’m not sure … The fire might have been the day before.’

  ‘But there was even more gas then.’

  ‘That’s why I opened the window. I was worried about an explosion. Yes, it must have been the day before.’

  Stratton raised his eyebrows. ‘So Davies didn’t know that his wife had been strangled.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘I made Davies a cup of tea to calm him down. I told him – I said it was likely – that he’d be suspected of having done it himself—’

  ‘Gassed Muriel himself?’

  ‘Yes, because of the rows and fights they’d been having. He agreed with me – he said he’d bring the van he’d been driving and take the body away somewhere. I went downstairs after that … I had the impression that he’d taken his wife in the van.’

  ‘This was on the Tuesday, was it, the seventh of November?’

  ‘I think it was.’

  ‘And you didn’t check to see if the body was still there?’

  ‘No, I thought … I’m not sure what I thought. A few days later – the Friday, it must have been – he told us he was going to Bristol, and he left. He’d sold the furniture, and they came for that afterwards.’

  ‘What about the baby?’

  ‘I don’t recollect seeing the baby again. I remember Davies saying to me that he’d fed her, but I can’t remember when that was. Sometime that week, it must have been … Davies came back the following week, but he didn’t stay long. That’s when we had the conversation about the money – I told him he should be careful with it. We left the house together, because I was going to the doctor, and we got on the number seven bus. I remember, because I paid his fare … I got off at the doctor’s and he stayed on because he was going to Paddington.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘He told me he was going back to Wales.’

  ‘Did you kill the baby?’

  Backhouse’s mouth twisted round to the side, and he closed his eyes for a moment before answering in a whisper. ‘No.’

  ‘Did you see the baby again after you killed Mrs Davies?’

  ‘No. I didn’t see her. I didn’t know what happened to the body—’

  ‘Whose body?’

  ‘Muriel. Mrs Davies. I didn’t know what happened until the police came and found them both in the washhouse.’

  ‘Are you prepared to sign a statement saying all that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Monica lay quite still, eyes closed, for a long time. Although she still felt groggy and strange, she was definitely awake. The house was quiet. Perhaps Auntie Doris had gone … She’d definitely been there when the doctor came, holding her hand and wiping her face with a wet flannel.

  Raymond had been so angry. When he’d arrived, she’d thought it was Dad and rushed to the door to find him on the step. When she’d told him how she hadn’t gone through with the operation, he’d just exploded. He’d asked her why she hadn’t come to him to fix something up, and when she’d tried to explain about Dad, and how it was Pete who’d told him and not her, he’d got even more furious. ‘He threatened me!’ he kept shouting. ‘He dared to threaten me!’

  She’d thought, for a moment, that he was going to kill her. She remembered, in a blur, him coming towards her, knowing what he was about to do but being too late to stop him, the blow and the fall, being unable to save or protect herself, her gestures as feeble as if they’d been made underwater. Then her relief when Dad had come home, a
nd her fear that he would kill Raymond or hurt him badly, and get into trouble because of her; and then she’d gone upstairs and the pain had started. Like a cramp at first, doubling her up, and then the feeling that her insides were separating, that something was giving way, and seeing the blood …

  She didn’t remember much about the doctor’s visit – hushed voices, probing hands, something soft being slid beneath her bottom, and Doris leaning over her, brushing the hair off her forehead …

  She gazed up at her favourite damp patch that was the shape of a smile and thought about the dog’s head on the ceiling of Mrs Lisle’s back room. Lying and looking up at it, she’d thought that she would be attended to immediately, but as the minutes passed and she lay listening to footfalls from upstairs and Mrs Lisle still did not come, she began to experience an odd sensation. It was as if her mind or her spirit, or possibly both, had become divorced from her body so that she was looking down at herself from above. Quite coldly and dispassionately, she’d considered what might happen if she were to die as a result of Mrs Lisle’s ministrations. Strangely, she’d found that she didn’t mind much for herself. In fact, she’d reasoned that dying in such a manner would guarantee that her family never discovered what was – or had been – wrong with her. Then she’d thought of Dad. Dad who’d already lost Mum, and who didn’t deserve to lose her as well, no matter how unsatisfactory a daughter she was.

  It was this that impelled her, robot-like, to stand up, pull on her knickers, fasten her stockings, put on her coat, and leave. Moving like a sleepwalker, she’d gone down the passage, opened the door, and walked away into the night.

  It occurred to her now that during all that time she hadn’t thought once about the baby. But Raymond had seen to that himself, hadn’t he? So things had turned out for the best after all. Even if the baby had managed not to inherit whatever it was that was wrong with her – being one of ‘Nature’s Mistakes’ Anne had called it – it would still have been Raymond’s child, and Raymond was …

  Monica shook her head. She was too tired and confused for her emotions to be anything but a vague jumble. Grief, she certainly felt, like she had when Mum died, but for what she wasn’t sure. The baby, she supposed. That must be it. The baby. But there was relief as well, and the absolute, certain knowledge that, whatever happened, she was never going to have anything to do with a man ever again.

  Monica turned over and was about to drift back to sleep when out of the corner of her eye she saw a little card on her bedside table. Reaching out for it, she read, Have a good rest. See you later. Love, Dad x

  He will forgive me, she thought. And Pete will never dare say another word after this … She was safe. Just as long as they never found out what she was really like, everything would be all right … And that was up to her – to make sure they didn’t. Kissing the card, she propped it up against the lamp and then positioned her head on the pillow so that – assuming she didn’t turn over in her sleep – it would be the first thing she’d see when she woke.

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  ‘Doesn’t sound very likely,’ said McNally. ‘The recovery Backhouse is alleging the first time Mrs Davies tried to gas herself doesn’t sound possible, especially given that he was affected after so short a time …’

  ‘The thumping head, you mean,’ said Stratton.

  ‘Yes. And as for the second time, the actual administration of the gas, he must have got quite near the outlet himself … And there’s the business about the fire, well …’ Stratton could imagine the pathologist, who was on the other end of the phone, shaking his head.

  ‘I thought so.’

  ‘I assume it’s not germane, is it?’

  ‘Not as far as the trial’s concerned, no – DCI Lamb’s just told us they’ve decided to proceed with the murder of Edna Backhouse.’

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t have any problems there.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Stratton. ‘Thanks, anyway.’

  ‘If he’s so keen on “the more the merrier”,’ Stratton asked Ballard when he came into the office several minutes later, ‘why hasn’t he confessed to the baby?’

  ‘Well, sir, whatever’s going on in his mind, I don’t think it’s as straightforward as all that. He’s justified all the others, hasn’t he? The prostitutes were making the running, being aggressive and starting fights and so on, and Muriel and Mrs Backhouse and the woman from the factory were mercy killings.’

  ‘Except that someone punched Muriel in the face.’

  ‘That might have been Davies – I mean, if they’d quarrelled earlier on. But if it was Backhouse, he’s not going to admit it because it won’t fit his story. And how on earth could he justify strangling a baby?’

  ‘Because it was in the way?’ said Stratton. ‘Making a noise and attracting attention?’

  ‘Yes, but there’s no way to say that without putting himself in a bad light.’

  ‘People have killed babies for less. We’ve come across it a few times.’

  ‘Parents,’ said Ballard. ‘End of their tether and whatnot. It’s not the same – and anyway, it’s no sort of defence.’

  ‘No, you’re right. It isn’t. If he did, I don’t believe that Edna Backhouse knew about it. And Davies had bought a teddy bear for the baby, hadn’t he? He showed it to his aunt and uncle in Wales. We thought at the time he wasn’t bright enough to do that to put them off the scent.’

  ‘And the duck, sir. Remember? With the body … tucked into the clothes. I remember it because my Katy had one just like it.’

  ‘You mean that it might have been her favourite toy and only a parent would have known that.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘But perhaps it was just there – in the cot or wherever she was, and got caught up in the things when Backhouse bundled her up, if he was doing it quickly – but then again, he claimed not to know anything about how the bodies got into the washhouse.’

  ‘That’s true, sir. I suppose it was because it made an impression on me – it just made me wonder about it.’

  Stratton leant forward, across the desk. ‘But what do you actually think?’

  Ballard looked genuinely helpless for a moment, then said, ‘I honestly don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Me neither.’ Stratton shook his head, remembering his son’s scorn, his own pathetic attempts to justify himself, and Pete’s voice, dripping with sarcasm: As mistakes go, Dad, I’d say this one rather takes the biscuit. . . If only Davies could be proved guilty, he thought, that would go some way to redeeming him in Pete’s eyes – although nothing, he knew, could make up for Jenny’s death. But wishing wouldn’t make it so … And what one thought about the logic of the thing didn’t, and couldn’t, square with what he instinctively felt, which was that Davies had been innocent all along. ‘Mind you,’ he added, ‘I suppose Davies taking the body – or bodies – off in his van would explain why no one spotted them with all those workmen about … But then why bring them back, especially if he’d planned to scatter the bits about, like the torso murder – remember those cuttings we found in the flat?’

  If Ballard thought he was clutching at straws, he didn’t show it. ‘Backhouse could have planted them, sir. He’s pretty keen on newspaper cuttings himself – he had quite a few in his suitcase about Davies, and there was that one he almost showed Mrs Carleton. That was about the Davies case, too.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Arliss gave me a message from the lab – it got sent there by mistake. I asked him to bring us some tea, by the way.’

  ‘Well done … Coming back to what we were saying before, I should have thought taking an adult’s body downstairs and out the front door would have caused a bit of a racket, and if Davies had done it at night that would be all the more reason for the Backhouses to hear …’

  ‘Here you are, sir.’ Arliss shuffled in with two cups of tea, most of which seemed to have ended up in the saucers.

  Hastily shoving all his papers aside as the elderly constable’s unsteady hand
pushed the china onto the desk, Stratton thought that Arliss’s retirement, due in a few months, couldn’t come a moment too soon. With ill-health, in the form of tremors, being added to his habitual incompetence, he’d become a one-man liability in the last year, regardless of how simple the task.

  ‘Thanks, Arliss.’ Stratton turned back to Ballard. ‘The Backhouses said they heard him bring Muriel’s body down to the washhouse, didn’t they? He said he thought Davies was moving furniture … Of course, if the last statement’s true, that means he was lying before, so … But somebody must have heard something, for Christ’s sake, and—’ Stratton, suddenly aware that Arliss was still standing somewhere over to his right, stopped and looked at him. The constable seemed suddenly alert – or rather, his usual expression of morose vacancy altered sufficiently for him to look grotesque and slightly shifty at the same time.

  ‘Was there something else?’ Stratton asked pointedly.

  Arliss sucked his teeth and shook his head, as if contemplating a piece of exceptionally shoddy workmanship. ‘I can’t see why you’re bothering about all this, sir.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘All this about Davies and his missus and baby.’

  ‘Well,’ said Stratton, with withering sarcasm – not that anyone as dim as Arliss could be expected to recognise it as such – ‘let me enlighten you. In the first place—’

  ‘I know Davies did it, sir.’

  Oh, for Christ’s sake, thought Stratton, irritably. What next? Maybe the station charlady would come and favour them with the benefit of her opinion. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘He told me.’

  ‘Told you? When?’

  ‘When he was here.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Stratton, exasperated, ‘obviously when he was here. But when, exactly?’

  ‘It was the morning after he come in, sir. I remember it was early, because I’d just had my tea, and I was on duty downstairs, keeping observation. We got talking because I was outside the cell. I told him I could understand him killing his wife’ – Stratton could well believe this; Arliss had been blaming his wife, or, more accurately, her cooking, for the fact that he’d been locked in mortal combat with his bowels for years, with the results of which his colleagues were all too well aware – ‘but I couldn’t understand an innocent kiddie. He said it was because the crying got on his nerves and he couldn’t put up with it, so he’d strangled her. Those were his words, sir – I remember it clear as day.’